Commonwealth Games 2010 to have a vast economic impact on India

The Commonwealth Games is a multinational, multi-sport event, held every four years. This will be the first time India will host the games and only the second time that the event will take place in Asia. This time the Commonwealth Games 2010 which are currently being held in Delhi have been surrounded by controversies ranging from corruption, inadequate facilities, infrastructure related mishaps and hygiene issues. However, after the massive success of the opening ceremony and the quick-fixes by the authorities, the buzz around most of these issues have died down and athletes are now focused on playing and winning medals for their own country.

Commonwealth Games 2010 set to create over two million jobs and have an economic impact of over USD 4,940 million on the Indian economy. These statistics are reported to be three times higher than the impact on Australia during the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games. What a massive impact on the Indian economy. The organizing committee also claims that the Games will encourage and enhance the sporting spirit among Indians and boost sport related activities among students, apart from providing better infrastructure and international recognition for the city of Delhi and the country. In order to involve the Indian business community in the promotion of sports in India, the organizing committee has also set up a Commonwealth Business Club India (CBCI). However as in the case of every initiative the negative sides of the Games have been pointed out by Hazard Center, an NGO, which claims that the city’s residents would have to pay a high price for the infrastructure and development carried out for the Games in the form of increase in prices of land and basic commodities. They claim that every country which has hosted Games related events has fallen into deep debts due to them and that India will not be an exception. However it must be said that Commonwealth Games 2010 opened doors for the Indian economy in terms of greater economic and social development. Delhi being the capital of India, a rich city thus gets another chance of achieving better economic status.